Making Money from My Art –

Are you an Artist? Have you ever wondered if you could make money selling your artwork online?

Even if you’re not a known artist, I believe you can make money from your art.

Why do I believe this?

Well, I’ve seen others make money selling their artwork.  And, they all had to start somewhere right?

They didn’t start out selling their paintings or drawings for thousands of dollars, but they are now…

and there’s one of many that I can think of that never even went to college to study art…His name is George Ayers.

He started doing artwork as a hobby in his free time and now…

that’s what he DOES…He doesn’t have to work for a boss anymore…he did have a 9 to 5 job in his past, which had nothing to do with anything when it came to art.

He paints truly mindblowing portraits of people. You can check out his very realistic art work on the YouTube video below.

There’s many more videos to watch on just this one painting on YouTube…plus, many other painting videos he’s done. I found it very fascinating myself watching how it’s done. You can learn more about this artist at his website. I’m in no way affiliated or anything like that…I just really thought his work and his story very inspiring as an artist myself.

If he can do it, why can’t you?

Or, for that matter…why can’t I? After all, I love doing artwork… I find myself working for hours lost in my own world whenever I start drawing or painting. Sure, I probably won’t come close to as good as what Mr. Ayers does, but I’d like to start learning more anyways.

True, I haven’t done too much artwork in years until recently to be honest. I’ve been forcing myself not to in fact. Otherwise, I’d spend to much time on it…and, I always feel guilty spending too much time doodling away the hours.

After all, isn’t it a waste of time? Artists don’t make money…not unless they’re dead right?

Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case as I’ve found out. There are many places to promote your artwork and sell it online, at local art shows, and galleries. Even some stores and restaurants may feature pieces from local artists.

You just have to open your eyes to new opportunities and you’ll find them.

Selling Your Art Online

How do you start selling your artwork online, you wonder?

There’s a few things I’d recommend you do to start out:

• Join a site that will sell your art for you in different formats
• Get Your Own Website
• Follow others that enjoy the same type of artwork you do on social media such as Pinterest, Facebook, Google +, Twitter, etc.  and don’t be afraid to leave some comments to others there. Get to know people that interest you. Say something nice about something you like…and, share other people’s art work too. Don’t be selfish…at least it’s what’s worked for me on the social sites so far in other endeavors and this is before I even thought about making money from my artwork.
• Join art communities, blogs, and forums that you find active…make sure you check out the dates and how active they seem to be! Otherwise, you might be commenting on old news.

Joining an Art Site

Well, one of the best places, in my opinion, is FineArtAmerica.com

I recently joined it myself and found you can not only sell your art there, but  you can make money many times over by selling your artwork as prints, canvas prints, greeting cards and more. If you enjoy taking photographs you can sell those as well. This is what I started out with just recently since I haven’t quite gotten ready to share my actual artwork there yet…need to get out the camera and take some good photos of what I’ve been working on first.

Well, that’s my excuse anyways…for now. But, I’ll be adding the actual artwork there soon and I’ll see what happens.

And, you know what I really like about it? Well, you don’t have to worry about shipping it to the buyer or packaging or anything like that…

They do it for you!

Sounds good to me. I have enough headaches and hassles to worry about as it is.

But, the REALLY good thing I like about Fine Art America… is YOU can set your OWN prices! They don’t tell you what YOU can make like some other similar sites.

Plus, you can even sell your original artwork there too. Of course, then the shipping, packaging, and all that fun stuff is up to you then, but if you check out their site and look up some of the recently sold originals…

Well, you probably wouldn’t mind doing that at all if you sold an original of your own for the prices some of these sold for…I wouldn’t be complaining anyways.

Anyways, it’s up to you on that…there’s also etsy, Zazzle,  and society 6 to name a few more. I haven’t really checked into them that much and I don’t know how well they work as of right now. But, I do believe they don’t have the same “set your own price” policy if memory serves correctly. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, I’d appreciate it…since I’m not positive about that, at least until I have more time to check them out again more thoroughly.

Here’s a short video about Fine Art America

Get Your Own Website

Don’t have a website for your art yet? Don’t worry…I don’t either…yet.

UPDATE: Yes, I do now! It’s been a long time since I posted here as I’ve been way too busy on well, quite a few different things in the art related field, not to mention learning new art techniques, illustrating books, learning video editing, etc. I’ll leave a link at the end of this if you want to check it out…I’ve had it up and running for quite a few years now and wow, it sure helps to have your own website to put your artwork on!

Unfortunately, I haven’t done as much on my art site as I’d like, since I spent quite a good chunk of this time illustrating books for someone…all thanks to having my art on my website and getting to know people from an awesome community of entrepreneurs…the very same place that has taught me how to build websites!

You can either hire someone to make one for you, which will probably cost a good chunk of money, or you can make your own…it’s not that hard to do anymore…believe me.

After all, I’ve made this site all by myself. I didn’t hire anyone to start this and you don’t need to either. You can learn how to build your own website if you really want to…it takes a little time, but it’s not that complicated.

Anyways, you’ll need a website to post your artwork on and send people to in order to find out more about you and your artwork. The thing is people like to get to know what your story is and learn more about what you do. It’s one of the reasons they buy people’s artwork…not just that it’s good art, but they like or can relate to you.

And, no I don’t mean a Facebook page or a free blog from Google or wherever…it’s not the same as an actual website that YOU own on a domain name YOU bought and paid for….you have no control over what Facebook or Google does.

They could shut down your page the next day and you won’t be able to do anything about it…well, I guess you could cry about it if you want…that’s about all though.

Of course, it’s fine if you want to get started on a free website such as Siterubix, which uses WordPress, especially if you’re not sure you’re REALLY truly wanting to put in so much work on this. Or, you’re not sure what you want to call it yet, or for whatever reason you might have…it’s important to have a website, either free or paid.

Once you decide you definitely want to make money from your art and decide on a domain name that makes your heart flip flop, you can always move your work from the free one to the new paid one, which by the way, doesn’t cost as much as you’d think in the first place. Domain names usually run around $10 to $14 or so a YEAR…yes, a year! But, you do need hosting too, which isn’t that bad either.

Want to get started on it right now? Look no further…

You can get your free website below: just fill in the box for your site name and click the button “build it now”

And, if you get stuck on something, I can help you with it…just let me know in the comments below.

But, anyways, I’m planning on starting my own art site very soon…you can check it out in my next post here in fact…

I’m going to be posting here more often…at least that’s my plan. And I’ll be telling you how my new site, whatever it may be called, is doing and what I’m doing to make money with my own art work.

I’ll leave it at that for now…If you’ve read this far, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed it and got something out of it.

Do you have a passion for art? Love drawing, painting, or just love checking out artwork? Need help getting started?

Then Check out My #1 Recommendation Here

Feel free to leave a comment or any questions you have in the box below. I’ll be happy to hear from you and help you out if needed.

And, if you’d like to take a peek at the website I’ve built for my artwork and tips for artists, you can find it here at Dream Driven Art.

Best wishes! -Sherry